Gloria and Russell’s Hotel Room Marroit, Downtown:
Gloria wakes up first the next day and gets up out of bed, without waking her husband. She didn’t sleep too well, as she walked towards the bathroom. What Lupe had suggested to them over lunch about adopting the girl got her thinking. They paid a visit to the hospital and saw the teenage girl sound asleep with machines connected to her.

The reason she and Russell didn’t have children of their own was that she couldn’t. She had too much scar tissue inside her uterus, and her fallopian tubes had scars from several surgeries she had to get from being attacked. Her doctor said she’ll never be able to have children.

The same could be said about Russell as well. He had been injured in his reproductive organs during his career as well. So, the chances of them having kids of their own were slim. She sits on the toilet and does her morning business, then heads back toward the bedroom. She looks over towards her husband and wonders what he wanted to do. They had talked about adopting the girl last night before going to bed, but nothing had been decided.

Gloria walks over and kisses Russell on the cheek. She knew that her husband felt her presence near the bed.

“I know you are awake, sweetie.” Gloria could tell when her husband was asleep and awake.

Russell turned onto his back and pulled Gloria towards him. As she lay on top of Russell, he looked into Gloria’s hazel eyes and kissed her. He held onto her as she lay on top of him.

Gloria kisses her husband back. She lay on top of him and looked into his grey eyes. “You know, I still don’t know what to do about Lupe’s request.”

“I know. If we agree to adopt her, and she feels uncomfortable being with us, what can we do? Also, with you traveling and doing jobs for your company and me doing jobs for the Marshal Service. Who is going to watch her while we are doing our jobs?”

“Well, she is sixteen years old and knows how to take care of herself. It’s not like she is a toddler or anything.” Gloria figures Piper was old enough to look after herself.

“True, within a few years, she’ll either go to college or a trade school. Hopefully, she doesn’t get pregnant at a young age.” Gloria figures if Piper
was having periods, she was able to have children as well.

“So? Are we going to adopt Piper or what?” Russell keeps looking into Gloria’s eyes.

“If she is willing to move to Montana, and if the courts here approve, then yes. The ball will be in her court now.” Gloria figures she could use the company law firm to handle the adoption.

“Let’s get some breakfast and talk with Lupe before we go and talk with Piper. It also might be best if Lupe introduces us to her before we discuss this with her.” Russell figures Lupe should be the one to approach Piper and explain things to her before they offer to adopt her.

First Health Montgomery Memorial Hospital:
Piper felt so weak and sore as she leaned against the nurse helping her walk. She was having a hard time breathing because she was missing a lung. It felt so strange only to have one lung.

Piper looks at the nurse helping her. The woman was old enough to be her mother. “Can we go back now?”

Nurse Hathaway looked at Piper when she asked that question. She knew the poor girl had been wondering why anyone would try to kill her. The detectives had come by this morning to see if Piper was awake and question her.

When the detectives left, they didn’t look too happy. They had a look that said that this was going to be a long investigation.

“All right, I think we can go back to your hospital room now.” Nurse Hathaway escorts Piper back to her hospital room.

Once Piper is back in the room, she sits down on the edge of the bed and carefully swings her legs up onto the mattress. She winces a few times because of her broken ribs and the bullet holes in her back. She looks towards Nurse Hathway. “Can I get an aspirin or something, please?”

“Is it your ribs or where the bullets enter your back?” Nurse Hathaway looks at Piper’s face for an answer.

“Both of them. If I move too much, my ribs hurt, followed by the holes.” Piper wonders what else the bullets did to her when they entered her body.

“Okay, but I’m going to give you only half of a pain pill.” Nurse Hathway gets the pills and gives them to Piper.

“Thank you.” Piper pops them into her mouth and drinks some water from a cup.

Nurse Hathway leaves her hospital room. Piper sees that her favorite stuffed animal from her hotel room at the boys’ group home was brought in.
She picks it up and hugs it really tight. She wonders why someone tried to kill her. She has never done anyone any harm or been rude to them.

She carefully lays back on the bed and wonders if foster care is going to take care of her medical bills. Because she doesn’t have any insurance at the diner she worked at. She lay back and tried to get comfortable. She picked up her Kindle and started reading one of her favorite books she bought.

Grand Max Used Cars:
“How incompetent can you be, Mike?” Jeremy looks at Mike as he sat in front of him.

“How was I supposed to know she would survive? I did what you asked me to do, and I proved that I was willing to do it.” Mike looked at the older man standing in front of him.

He was instructed that if he wanted to join Jeremy’s crew. He had to prove himself by shooting and killing a random person. He had chosen Piper Welch to prove he wanted to join. He had watched him and learned what he does during school and after school. He managed to slip an Apple AirTag onto his bicycle so that he could track him. He spotted Piper going home after work. He knew with all the noise and traffic, it would hide the sound of the rifle he used.

He thought he had killed Piper, but according to a nurse who worked at the hospital. Piper had survived the attack. There was no way Piper knew who shot her, but Jeremy didn’t like it when the target lived. It was now going to be his job to finish the job properly.

Jeremy walks over to a wall and moves aside the picture covering the safe behind it. He inputs the combination and opens the door. He reaches into the safe and pulls out a wrapped weapon. Once Jeremy has the item he wanted, he closes the safe and slides the picture back in place.

He turns and walks back over to Mike and hands him the wrapped item. Jeremy looks down at Mike. “Finish the job, or don’t come back. I’m sending Ervin with you to make sure you do the job right.”

Mike unfolds the item in his hand and notices it was a Glock 19. He noticed it had an extended barrel with threads on it. He knew the threads were for a silencer and flash suppressor.

“I’ll make sure it's done.” Mike stood up and walked out of Jeremy’s office.

He knew his friend Archie had a silencer for the Glock 19 at his job. He’ll go by there to ask him to borrow it. As for Piper, he doesn’t mind getting revenge for what happened to his friends.

Mike walks out to his pickup truck and drives to Archie’s job. It was a good thing that Archie worked for his father, so it wouldn’t look strange for him to be there. Also, Archie could always make him a silencer with everything in the shop.